My fear of going blind
by thunderbird5
Summary: John has a fear of going blind. How does he cope with what is happening to him. I'm losing my site at a much faster rate than what everyone had thought. I'm letting you the reader into my confusing world. Another story will follow this one at some point.


This story is linked to My Heart Will Go On. I wrote this story in an effort to understand and accept my fate.

Disclaimer: How I wish the boys were mine. But nope; they belong to someone else.

Thanks again to my beta Darkflame's Pyre for checking this over for me.

When my eyes first started to mess around with me, I thought that maybe it was because I was reading too much and not letting them rest. Then it started to get worse as the days went by. I didn't pay much attention to the warnings.

Things started to blur and twist around like they was coming alive and wanting to get away from me. I was slowly beginning to get worried. At one point, my brother Virgil and I went to the mainland to pick up a few things for our father. My eyes started to close on their own and no matter what I did they wouldn't stay open. It was like I had lost control of the lids.

My brother was watching me at that moment, and he saw me fighting to keep my eyes open. Probably thinking that I was just tired, he didn't register that something was going on. So we went around town buying things we needed at home, and just looked around. My eyes closed without warning while I was walking with a box in my hands to the car. Stopping in the middle of nowhere I started to panic. I couldn't open my eyes and I didn't know why I had pain shooting through them.

Trying once more to open my eyes and failing to do so, I cried out: "Virgil I can't open my eyes!" Within moments the box was taken from my hands and I was taken to the car. How my brother carried the box and led me to the car I didn't know. As he forced me to sit in my side of the car, I lifted my eyelids with my fingers and hoped that they would stay open.

When I let them go they just slipped closed again. I could feel myself breathing faster and faster. What was going on here? I had taken my glasses off when we were on the road to let my eyes rest, but that wasn't the problem it seemed. I nearly shot out of the car when gentle hands touched my eyelids. Realizing that it was just my brother, I relaxed. When he lifted my eyelids I was glad to see his face. Letting my eyelids go and seeing them just close on their own my brother got up and said, "Put your feet in the car. I'm taking you to your doctor. I can't see anything wrong but something is definitely not right with them. If they refuse to stay open then it must be a warning of some kind and I'm not going to let you just try and sleep it off. Do they feel funny?"

Walking to the driver side of the car Virgil got in and I pulled my feet into the car and closed the door. I wondered if I should just shake my head and say that they won't open and that nothing else are going on. Realizing that my brother would go off at me when he found out the truth, I said, "I have pain shooting through them every now and then. They feel a bit numb too. And then you know that my eyelids won't open. That's everything."

_When did my hands start to shake" _I thought in confusion. For a moment I felt like bolting from the car. _This isn't happening to me._

Feeling my brother's hand leave my own, and I felt the rumble of the car.

My brother was driving fast but not so fast that he would run other people off the road. Before I knew it I was helped out of the car and taken into a doctor's office. It was quiet and it felt chilly. My brother took me over to a chair and made me sit. Then he asked for my ID and took it with him to the reception desk. He told the lady behind the desk that we had an emergency. I could hear his voice from where I was sitting. He told her what the problem was and she went off to get the doctor.

I could hear my brother as he came back to sit next to me. I was shivering a little, so I was pleasantly surprised when I felt Virgil drape his jacket over my shoulders. It was much too big for me but the warmth coming off it made me feel much better. Letting my head rest against my brother I felt him pull me closer and rubbing my back. His jacket got even warmer that way. I nearly drifted off because of the darkness and the warmth and the feeling of being safe when someone spoke to me. "John?" Lifting my head, I felt a bit embarrassed.

Sitting up straight, I again felt someone's fingers on my face. This time I saw another man looking at me. I blinked a few times. The lights were making my eyes water. When my eyes closed again my brother helped me up and led me to the office.

I wondered absently why everything at a med center had to be so cold, but I was distracted as the doctor began performing some tests.

First I was blinded by a really bright white light and then a blue one. I sat back at some point. I rubbed at my watering eyes and shook my head to get rid of the little stars. I rested my chin on the cold plastic thing in front of me. As my brother guided my face to sit as my doctor directed. There was another flash in my eyes. I could only see the white light and everything else faded away.

I must have moved somehow, as I was on the same chilled chair that I was before the light tests, but the next thing I knew, my head was resting against my brothers chest and before I could react, something freezing cold fell into one eye and started to burn. Then another one fell in the same eye. Virgil was holding both my hands in one hand and with the other he held me tight against his chest as I reflexively tried to move away.

"Let me go Virgil. My eyes feel like they are on fire. Please?" The nurse who had ignited the fire spoke again. "I'm sorry but it will hurt for a while. The drops are to make your eyes a bit bigger."

I turned in alarm to face her. "What? Why do you want to make my eyes bigger?" She didn't say another word. Virgil must have shown her a sign of some sort to let her know that he'd talk to me, because I heard her walk off again. I found that my eyes did feel kinda funny. When my brother let go of my hands I kept them on my lap. Not wanting to have them captured again I turned to him. "What does she mean?"

Feeling my brother shift a bit so that he could face me he said, "It's to let the doctor see what's going on in there." Feeling a bit embarrassed at the way I had reacted —like a kid rather than a grown man, I could only say "Oh."

For a few minutes we just sat there. Just as I wanted to ask what the time was, the woman was back and without asking me if she could touch my eyes, she opened them and looked at me. She must have seen the storm in them and the flashes of my temper. She left me alone in rather a hurry.

Again the fire made itself known, Virgil administering them one-handed, and this time I couldn't help yelping.

When I heard the distinctive click of the nurse's shoes on the floor, I understandably thought that she was back for round three. We were only taken back into the office. I was glad, at least until I had the lights again.

Then my head was tilted back, and I again felt something icy fall into my eyes. This time it was the doctor himself holding my head so I didn't dare fight him off. I knew that Virgil would step in if I did. There was no chance that I would be able to fight him off. I stayed still. My eyes felt really strange, like they were numb. Not the numbness I had felt in the car, but like they had become heavy. Dead.

Then I was facing the plastic thing again and this time Virgil was holding my head still, stroking my hair back from my forehead. I felt something touch my eyes, and wondered what it was. I could hear the doctor say numbers that had no meaning for me, and heard the same nurse repeating it back to him as she took them down.

Virgil spoke to the doctor and let go of my head. I nearly fell off the chair when my brother's face came into view. _When did I open my eyes?_ I thought in confusion as I tried to blink the funny feeling out of existence.

"She wants to put some eye drops in one more time John." Again I had to let my head tilt back, but this time the drops soothed rather than burned. When the nurse was done, she went out again and came back with a little box with ice in it and two small boxes in between the ice packs. Taking it from her, Virgil thanked her and got up from where he had sat down on a chair. I didn't even hear the doctor say goodbye.

When I was sitting in the car, my brother tapped me on my arm until I turned to face him. Giving a soft sigh he began to tell me what had happened. "The pressure in your eyes was too high. That's why your eyes wouldn't open. You could say that they were getting ready to give out. You have Glaucoma, Johnny."

Putting the box on my lap which held the eye drops Virgil said, "These you'll have to use for the rest of your life. As long as you use them you'll be okay." What he didn't tell me though, was that my eyes would get worse as the years went by. Or so they thought.

The next day I found dog tags next to my glasses. Holding them out to Virgil who was busy putting his shoes on I asked, "What's this for?"

Grinning he said: "If it so happens that you are not able to talk or such, these will let someone know that you're vision impaired. Rescue personnel would then be able to see that you have Glaucoma. If you don't have this on you, you could lose your eyes."

Sighing I put them on and wished it never happened to me. _What's next?_ I thought as I gathered all my things and got my eye drops from the fridge. We packed everything in the car and met up with a truck which was waiting at our jet to load everything we had gotten for the island. Putting our own things away and letting Virgil put my eye drops in the cooler, I went out of the jet to help the people load everything. When that was done I went back inside and sat down next to my brother, who was in the middle of getting the jet ready for lift off.

For quite a few months everything was pretty much okay again. Using the drops every night before I went to bed, I wasn't worried any more. It was a worry that was far off in the future, at least I thought.

That didn't last long. The twisting and blurring came back. First it only came when I was outside and or if I went for a run on the beach. Then one morning I woke up with a headache which had me feeling quite sick and grumpy for the whole day. That was, until Scott got a hold of me and pinned me up against a wall demanding an explanation.

I told him that I had a headache and that I didn't mean it to be so snappish. I promised him that I'd get some meds from Virgil to get rid of it. I didn't know that it was something else causing it.

Then I started to notice that I was finding it hard to focus on text. After that I couldn't see what was going on, on the screens when I watched a movie or something I was monitoring up on 'Five. I was starting to fear that if I told someone I would be taken off duty forever.

I knew that something was getting to be very, very wrong. I had a headache so bad one morning on my break on the island that I had to leave the breakfast table. Everything was twisting around, and my eyes felt strange and they started to hurt a bit. I got back into bed and hoped that the mother hens wouldn't find out about my little problem. So I kept myself busy doing some work on my laptop and playing some music. At lunch time I could feel every eye watching me.

When I again left the table without eating everything on my plate, I startled myself as I nearly walked straight into my redheaded brother. He caught me by the arms as I over-balanced, looking me up and down. "You okay?" He held my arms tight and waited for me to answer him. I knew that he has a way of finding out what it is.

He startled me by grabbing my arm and towing me into the lounge to sit me down on one of the seats. "John? Can you see me?"

Blinking in surprise, I asked, "What? Why are you asking me that?" I could feel the worry radiating from him. "Gordon? What do you mean 'can I see you'?" He was beginning to scare me now. When he spoke, I knew that he was noticing something in my eyes I didn't know about. "Cause your eyes are not focusing at times. It's like you are staring straight through us. I noticed it when you were watching me swim this morning. Your eyes would follow me and then stop all together. Then it would jump back to where I was when I started to swim again. That's why I'm asking if you can see me. I don't want to scare you Johnny. But I'm getting worried about you."

Gordon rested both of his hands on my knees and his green eyes looked straight at me. I realized that I couldn't see the emotions flickering over his face or in his eyes. All the finer points in my vision were blurry. I hadn't noticed it before, but I couldn't see the freckles that I knew were on the bridge of his nose, or the bits of amber that were around the pupils of his eyes. Gordon was the joker of the family, but when he noticed that something was wrong he would use his skills he would normally use to pick his victim to find out what we're hiding.

I could feel him shake slightly. It was a clear indication that his back was beginning to protest from the way he was crouched. Getting a hold of both of his hands I stood up and carefully helped him up. He moved away from me and stretched to get the tension out of his spine. I sat down again and he sat down on another chair he had dragged over. It was so unlike Gordon to sit down and talk. I knew that it was affecting him more than I had realized.

Looking at him, I said, "I'll tell you what you want, if you tell me how your back is at the moment." I knew even without the full clarity of my vision that my brother was grinning at me. Leaning forward, he let his head rest on his hands and said tiredly, "It hurts a bit. But a good swim or shower will fix it. I'll take one shortly."

Sighing I spoke resignedly. "Well, I lose focus every now and then. I don't know why but lately it's been happening more."

Sitting up straight again, Gordon moved his face close to mine and looked me in the eyes. I was glad he was so close; it meant that I could see him fairly clearly. "How long?" he asked firmly. "And are you using your meds?"

Sighing softly I nodded. "Yes, I use my meds every night before I go to bed. As for losing focus… Well, I can't remember when that started. It didn't happen after I got out of hospital. Remember that rescue?" Gordon nodded his head and then asked. "Have you told Dad or any of the guys?"

Shaking my head and then flinching as the headache got a bit worse, I said, "No, I haven't told anyone yet. I want to make sure that it was actually happening before I scared everyone."

Gordon just looked at me. "Alan told me that you looked freaked out a few days ago when you tried to read a book. He said that you just dropped the book and walked off. When he picked up the book he saw that it was one of the books you love to read. Did you drop it because you couldn't see the text properly?"

I felt tears burning their way to the front of my eyes. Mortified, I blinked to hold them back. "Yes, I-I didn't want to know that something was happening to me." Getting up, I paced agitatedly. He was watching me carefully. For only a moment he blurred out. I took a step and somehow ended up flat on my back. I couldn't make out anything for a moment. When I did, however I found my redhead brother staring down at me, the only thing clear was the red of his hair. Pulling myself upright again, I hiccupped and stood carefully. "Please don't tell anyone Gordon? Not yet. I'm going to lie down and if I'm still unwell I'll tell the others at dinner. Okay?"

I could feel Gordon's worry but I needed to make sure before I left that he was going to keep his word. I turned to walk out of the room; he was next to me before I knew it. He walked with me to my room. When I got onto my bed he watched me for a second from the doorway as I got settled, and then walked, off letting my door slide shut behind him.

When I woke up again it was time for dinner. My headache was now worse than ever, pounding in my skull like an iron hammer. I got through it without leaving my plate of half eaten food on the table like I had that morning. But it was a struggle.

I went down to the pool and sat myself down on a lounger under the shade of one of the palm trees. I hoped that the fresh air would make my headache go away. So I closed my eyes and just listened to the jungle. Not long after, I heard Virgil playing on his piano.

I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to the sound of a pool chair scraping over tile. Opening my eyes, I saw Scott looking down at me.

"Is something wrong Scott?" Shaking his head he just sat down next to me to enjoy the balmy evening.

About an hour of companionable silence, I left my brother, using the excuse that I was tired, and that I was going to bed. Reaching my room I sat down and wondered if now was the right time to tell Virgil about my eyes. Getting up I found it hard to think straight. I had to go down to the sickroom to get my new eye drops since the other bottle was empty, but God I felt sick. Half-way to the sickroom, I began to feel dizzy; my vision sliding in and out of the little bit of focus I still possessed. I slumped against the wall. I heard someone say my name, but I was too dizzy to respond. I would have jumped if I could but I was feeling too out of it. I felt a hand on my shoulder, then a muttered _whoa_ as I slid sideways. The person who had startled me caught me beneath the armpits before I could hit the floor.

They turned me in such a way that my head ended up on their lap. Turning my eyes upwards I saw Gordon looking down at me, his profile out of focus but for his shock of ruffled hair. In his hand he had my eye drops. Opening it he said quietly, "Looking for these?"

I blinked up at him and felt his fingers gently pulling my eyelids apart and putting in one drop in both eyes. Right there and then my headache was gone. Just like that. _What the?_ I thought, scared and confused at the same time. _I don't like this at all._

Sitting up I said, "It's gone. Not understanding what I meant, Gordon frowned a little as he closed the little bottle. "What's gone?"

I knew that Gordon might be mad at me, but there was nothing for it now. "I've had one hell of a headache all day. I'm sorry Gordon. I should have told you about that. I guess it slipped my mind." Getting up Gordon held his hand for me and pulled me to my feet. "It's okay. I knew you had a headache. I could see it."

Putting his arm around me Gordon handed me the drops and said, "Promise me that you'll tell Virgil first thing tomorrow Johnny? Cause if you don't, I will."

Looking down at the floor I nodded. "First thing tomorrow Gords, I promise."

My brother once again walked with me to my room and watched me as I got into bed. Switching off my light Gordon looked at me one more time. His green eyes shone with concern in the dark. Turning he said softly, "Night Johnny."

I closed my eyes and hoped that it all was just a bad dream. I wanted it to be gone when I woke in the morning.

"Night Gordy." I whispered.


End file.
